


The Beast with Two Hearts

by thecountessolivia



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: M/M, Season/Series 01, Vampirism
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-20
Updated: 2018-11-20
Packaged: 2019-08-26 19:41:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,194
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16687735
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thecountessolivia/pseuds/thecountessolivia
Summary: A killer's botched attempt at vampirism brings Will to Hannibal's door for advice. As usual, he gets more than he bargained for.(Originally written as a drabble for Hannibal Vampire Fest, now expanded into a longer story)





	The Beast with Two Hearts

“Nipula.”

Hannibal’s left eyebrow migrated minutely northward. “Nipula?”

Will sighed into his soup spoon. “You know, like— Dracula. That’s what the FBI are calling the guy. Off the record.”

“Presumably the unfortunate homage to the Transylvanian count of lore relates to the killer’s methods?”

“He didn’t just cut the victim’s throat and drink about a gallon of their blood. There were also” —Will pointed a finger at his own chest and made two vaguely circular gestures— “bite marks. Here. What’s the soup by the way?”

Hannibal shifted in his chair, a subtle perking up which Will had come to recognise as the doctor’s response to being engaged on culinary matters. Will, meanwhile, slumped with relief at having managed to momentarily veer the dinner conversation away from the case.

“Czarnina. A classic of Polish cuisine and a staple of my childhood.” Hannibal paused, presumably for effect. “Duck’s blood soup.”

Will tried to reign in a smile. “Couldn’t resist, huh?”

“Jack had already briefed me on the basic facts of the case. Once I knew you were coming to see me, I could think of no dish more appropriate to prepare.”

“Keeps things topical, I guess. What’s the second course? Blood sausage?”

The soup was predictably exquisite, rich and fragrant. To prevent coagulation, Hannibal explained, the blood had been thinned with apple cider vinegar. The resulting chocolate-brown broth bathed morsels of tender duck meat, dark winter fruits and noodles — melt-in-your-mouth, homemade noodles. Will’s appreciation must have shown, because Hannibal remained silent, with eyes latched onto Will for at least another couple of mouthfuls.

“Anyway. Jack said that you might be able to help. That you’ve had patients who thought they were vampires.”

“Who says they weren’t?”

Will stared up from his bowl. Candlelight frolicked in Hannibal’s eyes and cast off a subtle smile that was made solely of canines. Those canines could be considered topical as well.

“Jack may have overstated my expertise,” Hannibal resumed, mounting a choice spoonful of duck and bloody broth, and moving mercifully away from the topic of the supernatural. “It is true that I’ve had two or three patients over the years who confessed to a penchant for consuming blood. This was usually in the context of sexual gratification.”

Will was glad that his mouth was full and his eyes on his place setting when the last two words sailed forth from Hannibal’s lips. God knows what his face might have shown otherwise. As it was, his imagination was bubbling over inside his skull, spurting to the surface image after image. Will had the strange sensation of drowning by inches inside his own head. It didn’t help that the setting Hannibal had crafted for their hastily arranged late supper — the candles, the cellos, the canines, the haemal soup — only served to send him back to the loft apartment where the victim’s body was found.

There had been candles there, too: burning on windowsills and encircling the dead man who’d been left tied to a pillar, half-stripped and blood-drenched like a Catholic saint. His throat had been bitten inexpertly five times, then cut. Two dental halos marked his chest, ringing the nipples in red. Beethoven’s late string quartets were still playing softly on the surround sound when the cops broke down the door.

“Don’t think— there wasn’t anything sexual about this,” Will said. “Sex might have been the pretext to lure the— Are you sure you want to hear about this at the dinner table?”

“I’m always eager to bear witness to your mind’s extraordinary gifts, Will. Besides, you are here to work, and I am here to listen and assist if I can.“

A working dinner. Will almost forgot. The truth of that settled bitterly somewhere in the pit of his stomach. Associations with the crime scene aside, he’d have preferred that this abundance of dark and warm ambience had been arranged— for what instead, exactly? Will’s boundaries felt more strained than usual, fragile like the thinnest of capillaries. He felt on the verge of saying a hundred things, all of them inappropriate.

Hannibal was watching him intently, waiting. Will sighed again and began.

"This wasn’t the culmination of an escalating kink or vampire fantasy fulfilment gone wrong. The killer arranged the scene precisely, according to guidance he was given. He engaged in a ritual. In a rite of passage. Probably tried to film himself. Trouble is, he botched the main event. He gorged on the victim’s blood, then threw up most of it in the bathroom. Tried again, same thing. He wanted desperately to prove himself and failed.”

“He tried to be something he wasn’t.”

“Yeah.” Will twisted his dinner napkin in his lap. He could still feel the panic and grief in that loft, the killer’s woe at finding himself not an irrepressible creature of the night, but an ordinary human. "Didn’t have the stomach for it.“

Hannibal made a small considering sound. "Which begs the question: who was he trying to prove himself to?”

It was the very question responsible for the bubbling chaos in Will’s brain. He couldn’t shake the feeling that the failed student was due for a punishment. But from whom? 

“The same person who instructed him,” he said, swirling the spoon through his nearly empty bowl. Candlelight glinted off the acid and oil that mingled in the dark broth.

"You believe he was an inept acolyte. Was he ordered to make his kill?”

Will had wondered that, too. “I don’t know yet,“ he said. "Your patients. What did they get out of pretending to be vampires? Other than sex kicks.”

“Beneath their desire to consume or exchange blood I invariably uncovered a need for a deeper kind of intimacy. Something beyond what normal human contact could offer. The excitement and promise of power associated with vampirism were, to them, merely oblique benefits.”

There hadn’t been any intimacy in that loft, not with the victim. Desperate longing for validation or connection with someone or something else — yes. 

"A blood bond,” Will whispered. 

In the background, on some invisible speaker, the bow sawing over cello strings slid in search of a darker note. 

“Will.”

“Hm?” Will snatched himself from his reverie. 

Hannibal was leaning forward in his chair, almost conspiratorially, watching him. “Would you like a second helping?”

Will blinked, then stared down into his bowl. Somehow, whilst recounting a gruesome murder, he’d managed to polish off every last drop of his soup. 

“Uh, yeah. Sure. I mean, thank you.”

There was no hiding the pleasure on Hannibal’s face. 

“Your killer may have had a weak stomach,” he said, rising and moving smoothly behind Will's chair to collect his bowl. “The same cannot be said for you.”

Will felt his face screw into a grin. "Just— don't exsanguinate any more fowl on my account."

"I wouldn't dream of it," Hannibal murmured, suddenly so close that warm breath dissipated against the point of Will's pulse. 

Will suppressed a shiver and clutched at the napkin in his lap. He turned over his shoulder to look up at his host, but Hannibal had vanished silently into the kitchen. Without examining his whys and wherefores, Will stood up and followed.


End file.
